Volac

A Business Under Pressure to Perform

Volac has spent more than fifty years building deep expertise in ruminant nutrition, developing and supplying nutritional products that help dairy and beef producers improve animal productivity while reducing environmental impact. It is a privately owned business with manufacturing hubs in the UK, USA, and Asia, a genuinely global operation operating in markets that have grown steadily more demanding.

The pressures facing the business are real and well understood. Rising raw material costs, ongoing disruption in global supply chains, and tightening regulations around sustainability and feed additive approvals have made an already complex operating environment more challenging. At the same time, customer expectations have shifted. Farms and producers are increasingly focused on reducing their carbon footprint, and they are looking to their nutrition suppliers to be part of the solution.

For Mark Large, Group Chief Operations Officer, the business reality was straightforward: “Ultimately, our responsibility is to supply customers on time and in full, every time.” Meeting that responsibility, consistently, across a global network, required a business that could see clearly, decide quickly, and act with confidence. The systems in place were not making that easy.

IFS Cloud: A Deliberate Reimplementation

Volac went live with IFS Cloud, not as a like-for-like upgrade, but as a deliberate reimplementation. The distinction mattered.

Before a single line of data moved, the team started by mapping existing processes end-to-end and being honest about what was and was not working. Rather than lifting and shifting old ways of working into the new platform, the team reviewed and redesigned core processes where they needed to change. In parallel, a substantial effort went into cleansing and standardizing data, so the business went live on a much stronger foundation than it had operated on previously.

The approach was guided by a clear ambition. As Mark Large put it: “For us, this was about business transformation enabled by technology, not simply an IT upgrade. We were confident that IFS Cloud would do what it’s designed to do. The real focus was stepping back and asking how we could run the business better, more consistently, and put stronger foundations in place for the future.”

That mindset shaped every decision made during the program, from how processes were redesigned to how colleagues were prepared for change. Familiarity with the IFS Aurena interface, already in use at Volac for HR functions including vacation management, sickness, and health and safety, meant the system was not entirely new to colleagues at go-live. That head-start supported stronger adoption from the outset.

Removing Complexity, Building Confidence

One of the most significant outcomes of the reimplementation was a dramatic reduction in system complexity. Through a deliberate focus on simplification, Volac reduced platform customizations by almost 80%, removing over 3,350 custom items from the system.

Years of customization had made the platform harder to maintain, harder to upgrade, and harder to trust. Each custom item represented technical debt, a dependency that had to be managed, tested, and accounted for every time something else changed. Removing them freed their Business Systems team from a significant ongoing maintenance burden and created a more sustainable, upgradeable foundation for the future.

The simplification effort also extended to data. Legacy spreadsheets are being brought back into the system. That shift matters because clean, trusted data changes what a business can do. Dashboards are more reliable. Decisions happen faster. Time that was previously absorbed by manual data management is being redirected to higher-value work.

User adoption was strong. Within a few weeks of go-live, colleagues had adjusted to new ways of working, and there were no requests to return to previous methods. That speed of adoption reflected both the quality of the preparation and the genuine improvement in day-to-day experience.

Visibility That Drives Better Decisions

In a global business operating in volatile markets, the ability to see clearly is a strategic advantage. IFS Cloud has delivered exactly that for Volac.

Mark Large described it directly: “That is where IFS Cloud becomes critical. It gives us visibility across our exposure, including commodities, freight, exchange rates and supply capacity. With that information available, we can make informed decisions quickly. When you are operating globally with this level of complexity, visibility is what allows you to stay ahead rather than react late.”

The commercial benefit is tangible. Sales teams can now log in from anywhere and see customer information, history, and cases in one place without relying on colleagues to pull data together and pass it on. It is a practical example of a broader shift from fragmented, manual information-sharing toward a more self-sufficient, standardized way of working. The move away from manual workarounds is already improving the pace and accuracy of decision-making across the business.

Industrial AI and Sustainability Management: Building for What Comes Next

The structural work is done. The foundation is in place. What Volac is building toward now is a business better equipped to handle the demands of the next decade: one that is more efficient, more resilient, and increasingly sustainable.

AI is being introduced in a targeted, practical way. Supplier invoice processing is the starting point, with AI being used to automate elements of the accounts payable process and release time for colleagues to focus on higher-value work. The intent, as Mark Large is clear to emphasize, is not to reduce headcount: “The intent isn’t to remove roles, but to remove low-value manual work, so colleagues can focus on areas where they add more value to the business.”

Sustainability sits at the same level of strategic importance. Volac has committed to a net zero target by 2045, and ESG is described not as a bolt-on, but as the golden thread running through every business decision. Through IFS Cloud, the business has secured the Sustainability Management module and plans to implement it to enable robust measurement and tracking of environmental impact.

The transformation Volac has undertaken is not complete. It is, deliberately, a foundation. “This transformation is about building a business that can thrive in tomorrow’s reality. More sustainable, because regulatory expectations are increasing. More efficient, because margins don’t allow for waste. And more resilient, because the world isn’t becoming more predictable.” The technology is in place. The data is cleaner. The direction is clear.